The Cold War's Accidental Whale Observatory

The Office of Naval Research's creation of SOSUS in the 1950s was a response to the relentless attacks by German U-boats during World War II. The system consisted of a complex array of hydrophones fixed on the ocean floor and connected by cables to secret listening stations set up along coasts worldwide. Through SOSUS, the Navy was able to detect and track submarines, identifying their type, number of propellers, and even make and model number. However, they also picked up mysterious sounds, including deep booms, grunts, howls, squeals, clicks, and moans, which were initially unknown. It wasn't until decades later, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, that scientists gained access to these recordings and discovered that the source of these mysterious calls was whales.

The discovery of whale calls by SOSUS has significant implications for the field of bioacoustics. Chris Clark, a pioneer bioacoustic scientist at Cornell University, was one of the first to gain access to the SOSUS data. He received a call from Dennis Conlon at the Office of Naval Research, who asked him to come down to Norfolk and take a look at their data. Clark's work with the SOSUS data has led to a greater understanding of whale communication and migration patterns. For example, he discovered that bowhead whales sing songs that can sound like a freight train, wolves howling, or babies crying. These songs are not just random sounds, but are actually a form of communication that allows the whales to navigate and find each other in their underwater environment.

The use of SOSUS for whale research has broader implications for the field of oceanography and marine biology. The system has been used to track the movements of cetaceans, such as whales, by changes in the attributes of their thousand-mile songs. This has allowed scientists to gain insight into how the ocean floor is constantly being created as molten lava pushes up from beneath the Earth's crust. Additionally, the discovery of whale calls by SOSUS has raised questions about the impact of human activities on whale populations and the need for conservation efforts. As Clark notes, the whales may reconstruct an image of their underwater world by bouncing their sounds off the ice, allowing them to navigate and find each other in their environment.